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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673913">She Stoops to Conquer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avia_Isadora/pseuds/Avia_Isadora'>Avia_Isadora</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Borgias (Showtime TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Getting Together, Missing Scene, Older Man/Younger Woman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:00:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,092</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673913</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avia_Isadora/pseuds/Avia_Isadora</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Giulia Farnese has set her sights on getting the Pope into her bed.  Now she's got him there.  What is one to do next?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rodrigo Borgia | Pope Alexander VI/Giulia Farnese</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>She Stoops to Conquer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This goes in Season 1, Episode 2 just after Rodrigo visits Giulia in her new rooms.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies, But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise." – John Dryden</p>
<p> </p>
<p>               When she draws him down to her on her bed, Giulia feels little except a sense of triumph.  Her hand was well-played, for all that the cards she held weren’t much.  She has got the Pope in her bed, Alexander Sextus, and she is free of her husband forever.  After years of enduring a man who made her skin crawl, she can surely endure this for an hour or so. </p>
<p>               But he is older than her husband, the only man she has been with.  She expected done and done.  It takes more to get him there, interminable amounts of caresses and kisses, touching her, kissing down her neck with hungry bites like a glutton who has been half-starved.  And perhaps he is – a carnal man who has been celibate for what?  A few weeks?  It’s oddly frustrating.  Distaste she would accept as the price, but this strange hot and coldness disturbs her.  Giulia can only exert all her attentions in hopes she will not fail to statisfy.  That would be a fall at this point.</p>
<p>               At last he breaks and she rolls off him to lie on the thick linen sheets, letting the night air cool her.  They do not touch at any point.  He lies on his back, eyes closed, like an effigy on a tomb.  She would wonder if he lived, if she did not see the pulse at his throat. </p>
<p>               Giulia takes a deep breath.  She has conquered.  She has won with no wound to herself, and any captain would call that victory.  Perhaps he will require more skill, but she understands such things can be learned.  Her husband needed no spur except the view of her beauty, her helplessness and the fear she would not give him.  Alexander Sextus wants more.  She will have to learn more if she will keep him.</p>
<p>               He opens his eyes, turns and props on one elbow.  “Well,” he says, “that was pleasant.  What do you like?” </p>
<p>               She feels her face freeze, like a carnival mask slipping off to fall beneath the feet of passersby.  She has no answer.  How can one answer an impossible question?</p>
<p>               His head tilts, the corner of his mouth drawing just a little in an expression she can’t interpret. </p>
<p>               “I like you very well, Your Eminence,” she stammers.  In her fluster she mangles the title.</p>
<p>               “I suppose we will see if you do,” he says.  He plumps the pillows up and lies back, lifting his arm for her to come to him.  Giulia hesitates, then slides in to rest her head on his shoulder, her bare body against his along his side.  He is not the things she imagined before her marriage, not well-muscled and smooth-skinned, a beautiful youth’s perfection.  Perhaps he was, once, decades before she was born.  He certainly isn’t now.  And yet there is something about his hand on her hair.  “You are very beautiful, Giulia Farnese.”</p>
<p>               And what can be the correct answer to that?  I know?  That is smug beyond belief.  You flatter me?  Coy in the extreme.  Giulia takes refuge in truth.  “I hardly know what to say.”</p>
<p>               “Thank you is customary,” he says dryly.</p>
<p>               “Then thank you, Your Holiness.” </p>
<p>               He draws her hair around his finger, curling it in a ringlet and then releasing it.  “Have you ever engaged in falconry?” </p>
<p>               “I can’t say that I have,” Giulia replies.  It seems a distinct non-sequitur, but if he wishes to discuss sport, she supposes that the willingness to do so is something a mistress must cultivate.</p>
<p>               “You remind me of a peregrine I knew once,” he says.  His hand is warm on her shoulder now, not tight, but simply resting there.  “Lovely bird.” </p>
<p>               “Half-wild?”  She thinks she sees the poetic convention coming.</p>
<p>               He looks startled, angling so he can see her face.  “Good heavens, no.  She’d been born in the mews.  Trained from hatching.  Absolute perfection in the flight and the kill.  One could not ask for a better bird.”  His mouth twitches in what might be a smile.  “One day she flew away, scarlet jesses trailing.  Never seen again.” </p>
<p>               Giulia turns her face a little against his shoulder, anticipating the cautionary tale.  “What happened to her?”</p>
<p>               “I expect she managed.”  He strokes her hair again.  “After all, she was perfection in the kill.” </p>
<p>               “Perhaps she found a better master,” Giulia says.  “A tame bird cannot endure in the wild.” </p>
<p>               “Perhaps she did,” he says.  “But one hopes the wild is more to be enjoyed than endured.”  He cranes his neck to see her better.  “Do you find my person pleasing, Giulia Farnese?” </p>
<p>               “You know that I must say yes.”  She meets his eyes this time. </p>
<p>               “Ah, but it’s how you say it.” His dark eyes are smiling, but there is something there beneath the smile. </p>
<p>               She is startled into truth.  “I have never met anyone like you.” </p>
<p>               “I should think not!”  Mock indignation.  Of course she has never slept with any other Popes.  She’s never slept with any man besides the husband she will not name.  “There is no one like me.” </p>
<p>               “The only one of your kind?” </p>
<p>               The eyes change.  “I would not say that,” he says.  There is something there, some wound she cannot imagine, beyond her fathom.  To pick a sore until it bleeds – it is not in her to conquer by cruelty.  The kill should be clean.</p>
<p>Giulia lifts her hand to his face, laying it against his cheek, her fingers in his hair.  He turns his head and kisses her palm softly.  Her breath catches, her eyes flickering closed.</p>
<p>               “Ah,” he says, and kisses the join of her thumb and forefinger.  He must feel her shiver, this unfamiliar frisson.  “And you intend to make a life in the wild?”  His lips move to the first finger and the second.  How can that skin be so sensitive? </p>
<p>               “Yes,” Giulia says.  There is no going back.  She would not, in any event.  It will be him or some other protector.  She has crossed the harbor chain, and it is closed to her. </p>
<p>               “Then I will not be the one you regret.”  He kisses her palm once more, his face in perfect profile, fine bones beneath weathered skin, eyes sweeping shut with lashes like a girl’s, the day’s beard on his chin more white than dark. </p>
<p>               She is certain he promises many things to many people, but this one she does not doubt.  “I know,” Giulia says, and leans into him.</p>
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